Hello all, a very short weekend preview for our Koreans Abroad this week. Match to watch this weekend: Swansea City vs Tottenham Hotspur (Korean Derby). Sadly Ki Sung-Yueng will not be featuring due to his toe injury.

> Tavern owner takeover: we’ve been all so busy, but don’t want to neglect some important developments, Jeonbuk crowned champions of Asia! Suwon Bluewings surprisingly take leg 1 of the Korea FA Cup, will their 2:1 win be enough when they go to Seoul World Cup stadium to face their supercup rivals FC Seoul on Saturday (in the US, kickoff is 11:30pm EST/8:30pm PST tonight) – more on that later. First, lets return to Nicole’s weekend listing!

Day

Time (ET)

Player

Club

Opponent

TV

Saturday

9:30AM

Park Joo-Ho

@Borussia Dortmund

Borussia Monchengladbach

FOXSports 1/ FOX Soccer 2GO

Saturday

9:30AM

Kim Jin-Su

@Hoffenheim

Koln

Fox Soccer 2GO

Saturday

10:00AM

Ki Sung-Yueng

Swansea City

@Tottenham Hotspur

NBCSN

Saturday

10:00AM

Son Heung-Min

@Tottenham Hotspur

Swansea City

NBCSN

Saturday

10:00AM

Lee Chung-Yong

@Crystal Palace

Southampton

CNBC

Sunday

11:30AM

Koo Ja-Cheol

@Augsburg

Frankfurt

FOXSports 1/ FOX Soccer 2GO

Sunday

11:30AM

Ji Dong-Won

@Augsburg

Frankfurt

FOXSports 1/ FOX Soccer 2GO

Monday

12:00PM

Suk Hyun-Jun

@Trabzonspor

Adanaspor

Nil

Stay with us, more after the jump…

I don’t expect Park Joo-Ho to be included in the squad list this week. There are reports of him searching for a new club. Hope he chooses a club where he is a regular starter.

Kim Jin-Su hasn’t starting any league games and made no bench appearances this season. I expect it to be the same this week too. He should definitely think about a move in January.

Ki Sung-Yueng is currently injured with a minor toe injury. He should be out for a couple of weeks.

Son Heung-Min should start against Swansea City this weekend. We haven’t seen a goal from him in ages. Let’s go Sonny.

Lee Chung-Yong is currently injured right now, he retained a little knock during International Week. I expect him to out of the squad list this week.

Koo Ja-Cheol sustained a calf injury couple of weeks ago. He should be back in one months time.

Augsburg don’t have any strikers available right now so I expect Ji Dong-Won to start this weekend against Frankfurt.

Looks like Suk Hyun-Jun has been replaced by second choice striker Dame N’Doye. N’Doye has been scoring in crucial games and has been starting over Suk Hyun-Jun. I expect Suk to make bench against Adanaspor this week.

Tavern Owner takeover Part II:

Jeonbuk won the Asian Champions League title last weekend in a hotly contested 2nd leg at Al Ain. The UAE club did not go without a fight and with some abysmal defending, Jeonbuk was staring at a penalty kick away from extra time. Let’s recap this crazy game as it was fraught with drama and back and forth tension:

With the aggregate score in Jeonbuk’s favor (2:1 victory at Jeonju for leg 1), Lopes fell in the opening 3rd minute. He was substituted for Han Kyo-Won and you could sense the tremendous loss of confidence after having lost the brilliant Brazilian to leg injury with 85 minutes left to play for. After the match, doctors informed the team that Lopes would be out 6 months to recover from a cruciate ligament injury.

Lee Myong-ju brilliant strike after latching onto Caio’s cross into the area. Lee was unmarked and the shambolic Jeonbuk defense was culpable. Suddenly Al Ain were in the ascendency, back in it with a goal to equalize…

Which Al Ain were poised to do several minutes later after Kim Hyung-il slow clearance allowed Aspirilla to seize the opportunity. Kim fouled him in a panic and suddenly Al Ain was about to rock the stadium with a chance to convert a PK. Except fate intervened: Douglass eyed the top right corner, and lifted the ball high, past a low diving Suntae, and up over the crossbar! PK miss and Al Ain would rue the missed opportunity.

2nd half clear penalty for chopping down Han Kyo-Won in the box waived off by the referees, who had managed to mismanage the game. That could’ve been catastrophic for Jeonbuk, but with the Wookie coming in as reinforcement and the hot hands of Suntae keeping several dangerous strikes out of the Korean net, Jeonbuk buckled up and held on to a tight 1:1 draw, enough to win 3-2 on aggregate and win their 2nd Asian title – the first a decade ago – and avenged the referee’s miscall that allowed the 2011 title to slip away in Jeonju.

One additional post match consequence: not only does Lee Dong-Guk, the lion king, set off the for sunset (possibly retiring?), manager Choi Kang-Hee – who the Tavern admittedly malign frequently for his role in falling backwards into the 2014 World Cup qualification for Team Korea – won Asian manager of the year at the AFC awards yesterday. Congratulations – or something like that.

The win now extends Jeonbuk’s historic season – one wild roller coaster ride with a December date at the FIFA Club World Cup. There they will meet up with the winners of other continental club champs including Real Madrid. Awesome if Jeonbuk can score – though their defense probably will get lit up. And according to Korea Football News twitter feed, this:

Ex-Busan IPark midfielder William has been included in Club América's squad for the 2016 FIFA Club World Cup.

I’m running out of time, I’m procrastinating on my other writing job, only moments left to go over the Korea FA Cup SO I’ll leave you with this discussion at K-League United of Suwon’s 2:1 win over FC Seoul in the first leg last weekend. The very last domestic game of the 2016 season comes down to this final last leg, should be a good atmosphere and politically agitated anti Park Guen-hye crowd on hand to witness the supercup showdown of the year. Will Park Chu-Young recover in time? What’s Adriano doing on the bench? So many questions, and only answers to give tonight. Catch the 2nd leg of the Korea FA Cup (and read here for a discussion on what to expect for the 2nd leg at K-League United):

1:30pm Korea time kickoff in Seoul World Cup Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

That translates to 11:30pm TONIGHT (friday Dec 2) on US East coast / 8:30pm for US Pacific coasters.

K League Classic

Most recent soccer data here. The system is currently retrieving statistics from data feed.

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Team

P

1

Jeonbuk Motors

34

2

Suwon Bluewings

25

3

Jeju United

24

4

Gyeongnam

22

5

Sangju Sangmu

22

6

Gangwon

20

7

Ulsan

20

8

Pohang Steelers

19

9

Seoul

15

10

Jeonnam Dragons

12

11

Incheon United

8

12

Daegu

7

Most recent soccer data here. The system is currently retrieving statistics from data feed.

May 20, 2018

Seoul

0 - 4

Jeonbuk Motors

Pohang Steelers

1 - 1

Suwon Bluewings

Sangju Sangmu

0 - 0

Jeju United

Incheon United

1 - 1

Ulsan

May 19, 2018

Jeonnam Dragons

1 - 1

Daegu

Gyeongnam

0 - 1

Gangwon

English Premier League

Most recent soccer data here. The system is currently retrieving statistics from data feed.

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Team

P

1

Manchester City

100

2

Manchester United

81

3

Tottenham Hotspur

77

4

Liverpool

75

5

Chelsea

70

6

Arsenal

63

7

Burnley

54

8

Everton

49

9

Leicester City

47

10

Newcastle United

44

11

Crystal Palace

44

12

AFC Bournemouth

44

13

West Ham United

42

14

Watford

41

15

Brighton & Hov…

40

16

Huddersfield Town

37

17

Southampton

36

18

Swansea City

33

19

Stoke City

33

20

West Bromwich Albion

31

Hwang Heechan

Most recent soccer data here. The system is currently retrieving statistics from data feed.

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Team

P

1

Red Bull Salzburg

83

Bundesliga

Most recent soccer data here. The system is currently retrieving statistics from data feed.

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Team

P

1

Augsburg 1907

0

2

Bayer 04 Leverkusen

0

3

Bayern München

0

4

Borussia Dortmund

0

5

Borussia Mönchengladbach

0

6

Eintracht Frankfurt

0

7

Fortuna Düsseldorf

0

8

SC Freiburg

0

9

Hannover 96

0

10

Hertha BSC

0

11

TSG 1899 Hoffenheim

0

12

1. FSV Mainz 05

0

13

Nürnberg

0

14

RB Leipzig

0

15

Schalke 04

0

16

Stuttgart

0

17

Werder Bremen

0

Kwon Changhoon

Most recent soccer data here. The system is currently retrieving statistics from data feed.

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Team

P

11

Dijon

48

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The Tavern of the Taeguk Warriors is an online community of Korean football/soccer supporters. We bring you news, analysis and opinion in English about Korean players abroad, youth players and the K League.